6A: Biological dispositions & the limits of learning Flashcards
Physical charactristics
All subjects have limits on what they can learn due to their physical characteristics e.g. chipms cannot learn language due to differences in vocal cords.
Learned behaviour is not inherited
Learned behaviours cannot be passed down to our children genetically.
Also a strength: adapt to changes in our environment
The environment
Neurotoxins, malnutrition, head injury, other neurological damage limits our capacity to learn
Critical period
Life stages that are considered optimal for learning to occur e.g. imprinting.
Preparedness and conditioning
An innate biological tendency to learn certain types of behaviours or associations more easily.
Preparedness and classical conditioning
Fear Conditioning (inherited predisposition to fear certain stimuli) Conditioned Taste Aversion
Preparedness
Biologically determined tendency to more readily associate certain types of stimuli.
Evolutionary relevance of prepared associations:
• Nausea more likely from ingested material
• Pain more likely with stimulus that can be seen or heard
Preparedness: differences with other types of classical conditioning
Associations can form after lengthy delays
One trial conditioning: might only need one trial for an association to develop
Specificities of Association: not generalised e.g. aversion to a dish at a certain restaurant
Preparedness and phobias
Preparedness can explain why phobias are so easily acquired
• Some CS-US associations are more readily learned
• Selectivity
• Rapid learning and detection of thing we are scared of
• Genes find their way to the next generation
• Preparedness can explain why phobias are so difficult to treat
Preparedness and operant conditioning
Evidence for biological constraints in operant conditioning, in relation to avoidance responses
E.g. can train a pigeon to fly to a perch to avoid a shock, but not peck a disk.
Some behaviours are naturally associated with certain types of need
Preparedness and operant conditioning: Bolles
Preparedness plays an important role in avoidance behaviour
Avoidance responses are not operants but rather elicited
behaviours (controlled by stimuli that precede them)
Aversive stimuli elicit SSDRs (species-specific defense reaction)
Instinctive drift
When a classically conditioned behaviour pattern interferes with an operant behaviour that was being reinforced
e.g. trying to train a racoon to deposit a wooden coin in a piggy bank - works at first, but devolves (naturally elicited behaviour takes over).
Sign tracking
When an organism approaches a stimulus that signals the presentation of an appetitive event (an event an organisms seeks out)
e.g. light is associated with food, so dog barks at light instead of sitting on mat.
Adjunctive behavior
An excessive pattern of behaviour that emerges as a by- product of an intermittent schedule of reinforcement for some other behaviour.
e.g. rats drinking 3x more water when food deprived.
Adjunctive behaviour develops in the period between instances of reinforcement.
Features of adjunctive behaviour
Occur immediately
Are affected by deprivation: greater deprivation = stronger adjunctive behaviour
Can function as reinforcers
Optimal interval between reinforcers and the development of adjunctive behaviour
